This is the former Ridgeway Furniture (Ridgeway Clocks) site on Mica Road in Ridgeway. It has been sold to a North Carolina company that plans to demolish all the buildings except the main office building (above), according to a Henry County official. The fate of the office building is not known. (Bulletin photo)

Sunday, October 14, 2012

By PAUL COLLINS - Bulletin Staff Writer

D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. Inc. has purchased the former Ridgeway Clocks property, once the location of one of the area’s oldest furniture companies.

According to real estate records, D.H. Wrecking Co. Inc., a North Carolina corporation, purchased 18.40 acres on Virginia 902 (formerly U.S. 220) and on the east side of U.S. 220, beginning at the right of way of Mica Road.

According to real estate records, $200,000 was paid for the property that is assessed at $1,548,800.

Lee Clark, Henry County director of planning, zoning and inspections, said an official with the company indicated to him recently that the company will demolish all of the buildings on the site except the main office, and it has not been decided whether that will be demolished, too.

The company then will decide whether to put the property on the market for resale as an industrial site or come to the county to seek approval as a location for doing demolition work and recycling, Clark said. That would be an expansion of the company’s operations, he said.

Clark said the company did not indicate to him specifically what under the general description of demolition and recycling the company would do on that site if it pursued that route.

The property is zoned I-1 Industrial, and the demolition and recycling work that has generally been described to him would require the land be rezoned to I-2 limited industrial, Clark said. A special-use permit also would be needed, he said.

Company officials did not return phone calls seeking more information.

Ridgeway Clocks began as The Gravely Furniture Co. in 1926 and started producing grandfather clocks exclusively in 1960, according to an online source. The company was purchased in 1985 by Pulaski Furniture Corp. and was renamed Ridgeway Clocks.

Howard Miller Clock Co. in Zeeland, Mich., acquired Ridgeway Clocks in 2004. Clock manufacturing was moved from the Ridgeway plant to Zeeland in 2005, and the Ridgeway branch’s focus became curio and wine cabinets. The Ridgeway plant closed in 2007.

Ridgeway grandfather clocks are traditionally presented to winners of the NASCAR Sprint Cup at Martinsville Speedway.

According to the company’s website, the D.H. Griffin Companies (DHG) is a group of privately owned and integrated companies that provide contract demolition, environmental and site development services, to both public and private sectors. Together, the DHG network includes more than 1,000 employees in offices throughout the South and mid-Atlantic states, with an equipment fleet numbering more than 600 pieces.

DHG completes more than $400 million in project revenue each year, serving both domestic and international markets.

According to online information from the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED is a guideline and assessment mechanism for designing, constructing and operating high-performance, green buildings and neighborhoods.

The corporate office is in Greensboro, N.C. It also has offices in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, and Richmond and Bristol in Virginia, according to the company website.

It says D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. was founded in 1959 by David H. Griffin Sr. and his wife, Marylene F. Griffin.

In October 2007 DHG was listed as the second largest demolition firm in the country by the Engineering, News and Record Magazine.